Actors: Patton Oswalt, Kevin Corrigan
Director: Robert Siegel
2008's The Wrestler, written by Robert Siegel, and Big Fan are sort of two sides of the same coin. In The Wrestler, Randy 'The Ram' Robinson was participating in these tiny wrestling shows in VFW halls - the question asked by Big Fan is, what sort of a person would go to see one of these shows? The fans are what sustain 'The Ram' - who are they, and why do they act as they do?
I first saw Big Fan in theaters in September - it holds up very well on the small screen. There is one gaping plot hole which I missed the first time that knocks this film down from a 4½ to a 4 - still, a strong performance by Oswalt and an excellent examination of the sports super-fan's psyche makes for a film certainly worth viewing.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
Monday, January 11, 2010
Nashville - 1975 - 5 Stars
Actors: A Cast of Thousands
Director: Robert Altman
In my now 3 star review of Traffic, I mentioned that I don't care for ensemble films with multiple storylines, and listed all the ones I didn't like. Nashville, a film I originally saw in 2001, was left off the list because I actually liked that movie a great deal. I liked it even better a second time - it is a stunning achievement in film, jammed with memorable images and emotional scenes.
Nashville succeeds where those films fail because its exposition is so artfully done, and its characters are constantly interacting with one another; it ends up that we're actually being told one story. Making a film that manages this is supremely difficult - the fact that director Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury also manage to comment on politics, television, entertainment, love, religion, race, and American culture generally through these interactions makes it a must-see.
Note: There are a lot of scenes where people are merely singing; there's probably a half-hour's worth of music in the film. It still works.
Director: Robert Altman
In my now 3 star review of Traffic, I mentioned that I don't care for ensemble films with multiple storylines, and listed all the ones I didn't like. Nashville, a film I originally saw in 2001, was left off the list because I actually liked that movie a great deal. I liked it even better a second time - it is a stunning achievement in film, jammed with memorable images and emotional scenes.
Nashville succeeds where those films fail because its exposition is so artfully done, and its characters are constantly interacting with one another; it ends up that we're actually being told one story. Making a film that manages this is supremely difficult - the fact that director Altman and screenwriter Joan Tewkesbury also manage to comment on politics, television, entertainment, love, religion, race, and American culture generally through these interactions makes it a must-see.
Note: There are a lot of scenes where people are merely singing; there's probably a half-hour's worth of music in the film. It still works.
Thursday, January 7, 2010
Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room - 2005 - 4 Stars
Director: Alex Jibney
Financial manipulation of the sort that Enron specialized in calls to mind two thoughts - A: How could these people be so greedy, self-centered, hubristic, etc. to think they would get away with it? and B: Wow, these ideas are kind of brilliant and it's really a shame this actually happened to people. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room kicks off in shaggy-dog, pandering fashion, only to morph into a tight exploration of Enron's rise and fall. The combination of arrogance, hucksterism, and callousness demonstrated by Enron executives and traders turn out to be a ripping yarn - that again, actually happened to people.
The most prophetic words come at the end of the film, when it is warned that this will happen again. Perhaps not A+ propheting, I suppose, but still resonating.
Financial manipulation of the sort that Enron specialized in calls to mind two thoughts - A: How could these people be so greedy, self-centered, hubristic, etc. to think they would get away with it? and B: Wow, these ideas are kind of brilliant and it's really a shame this actually happened to people. Enron: The Smartest Guys In The Room kicks off in shaggy-dog, pandering fashion, only to morph into a tight exploration of Enron's rise and fall. The combination of arrogance, hucksterism, and callousness demonstrated by Enron executives and traders turn out to be a ripping yarn - that again, actually happened to people.
The most prophetic words come at the end of the film, when it is warned that this will happen again. Perhaps not A+ propheting, I suppose, but still resonating.
Monday, January 4, 2010
Lethal Weapon - 1987 - 2½ Stars
Actors: Mel Gibson, Danny Glover
Director: Richard Donner
I'm too old for this shit.
I figured I'd plug a hole in my leaky pop culture boat by taking in the quintessential buddy cop film. I saw someone somewhere refer to Lethal Weapon as the perfect script and in one sense it is; Lethal Weapon is brilliantly escapist. Featuring good guys and bad guys (the film even refers to them as such at one point), the good guys kill the bad guys, some bad guys kill good guys, etc. The Oresteia, this is not - it's kind of like if Road House were set in Los Angeles and didn't involve bouncers.
It'd be really difficult for me to pinpoint the reason why I like, say, Die Hard, and why I didn't particularly like this movie, but I suspect it's just because Die Hard got there first. Had I caught this film in my early adolescence, I'm sure I would have enjoyed its many thrills and pithy dialogue.
Director: Richard Donner
I'm too old for this shit.
I figured I'd plug a hole in my leaky pop culture boat by taking in the quintessential buddy cop film. I saw someone somewhere refer to Lethal Weapon as the perfect script and in one sense it is; Lethal Weapon is brilliantly escapist. Featuring good guys and bad guys (the film even refers to them as such at one point), the good guys kill the bad guys, some bad guys kill good guys, etc. The Oresteia, this is not - it's kind of like if Road House were set in Los Angeles and didn't involve bouncers.
It'd be really difficult for me to pinpoint the reason why I like, say, Die Hard, and why I didn't particularly like this movie, but I suspect it's just because Die Hard got there first. Had I caught this film in my early adolescence, I'm sure I would have enjoyed its many thrills and pithy dialogue.
Friday, January 1, 2010
The Cincinnati Kid - 1965 - 4 Stars, 1½ Stars
Actors: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson
Director: Norman Jewison
I like to keep away from any criticism of a movie before I write my own review. However, today I decided to go on Wikipedia first - Wikipedia notes the similarities of this film to The Hustler. It may just be a massive hangover talking, but I had not even considered those similarities. The reason I hadn't is because The Hustler is a vastly superior movie in every way.
The Cincinnati Kid gets 4 stars for its cool poker sequences, which are filled with tension and reasonably well executed. It gets 1½ stars for being boring and making no sense away from the poker table. To me, it only takes one or two lines in a film to turn an archetype into a real character; sadly those lines were missing for most of the characters in this film.
Director: Norman Jewison
I like to keep away from any criticism of a movie before I write my own review. However, today I decided to go on Wikipedia first - Wikipedia notes the similarities of this film to The Hustler. It may just be a massive hangover talking, but I had not even considered those similarities. The reason I hadn't is because The Hustler is a vastly superior movie in every way.
The Cincinnati Kid gets 4 stars for its cool poker sequences, which are filled with tension and reasonably well executed. It gets 1½ stars for being boring and making no sense away from the poker table. To me, it only takes one or two lines in a film to turn an archetype into a real character; sadly those lines were missing for most of the characters in this film.
Wednesday, December 30, 2009
The Train - 1964 - 3 Stars
Actors: Burt Lancaster, Paul Scofield
Director: John Frankenheimer
There's not much use for the black and white action film, I realized while watching The Train. There are some interesting sequences, but we're reminded by every frame that we're watching something old that happened to someone else. The film also runs an unwieldy 140+ minutes - an interesting exploration of war and its effect on people, yes, but Bridge On The River Kwai this is not.
One thing I found funny about The Train is that there must've been a scene out of Barton Fink regarding its casting - everyone in the film is either French or German, but they speak only English with accents. However, Burt Lancaster, our hero, is the one person who speaks the President's English, with no attempt to hide the fact that he is American (e.g. he uses American metaphors). One imagines a pained studio executive ranting to the director about how Americans want to see American pictures with American heroes, and Burt Lancaster's got to talk the way people want him too, dammit. Frankenheimer has a similar setup almost 35 years later with many accented people and one American protagonist in Ronin, but at least there people speak their native language when it's called for (and Robert Deniro is actually American in the film).
Director: John Frankenheimer
There's not much use for the black and white action film, I realized while watching The Train. There are some interesting sequences, but we're reminded by every frame that we're watching something old that happened to someone else. The film also runs an unwieldy 140+ minutes - an interesting exploration of war and its effect on people, yes, but Bridge On The River Kwai this is not.
One thing I found funny about The Train is that there must've been a scene out of Barton Fink regarding its casting - everyone in the film is either French or German, but they speak only English with accents. However, Burt Lancaster, our hero, is the one person who speaks the President's English, with no attempt to hide the fact that he is American (e.g. he uses American metaphors). One imagines a pained studio executive ranting to the director about how Americans want to see American pictures with American heroes, and Burt Lancaster's got to talk the way people want him too, dammit. Frankenheimer has a similar setup almost 35 years later with many accented people and one American protagonist in Ronin, but at least there people speak their native language when it's called for (and Robert Deniro is actually American in the film).
Monday, December 28, 2009
Traffic - 2000 - 3 Stars
Actors: Michael Douglas, Benicio Del Toro
Director: Steven Soderbergh
I mistrust films with multiple, interweaving stories - I hated Magnolia, I don't particularly like Short Cuts, I've grown to dislike Syriana, and even Pulp Fiction has some dud scenes. Traffic is an Important Film with a Message, and its insistence on melodrama seems to be an uphill battle against the difficulties that interweaving stories create - once we're really getting into a story, the director brings us somewhere else. We're like a child who wanders in during the middle of a movie...
I did like the different filters and camera styles used to denote exactly which story we're in; the directing generally was top-notch. Even though the beginning of the film's multiple references to alcohol could win a Hamhandedness Award for Not-So-Subtle Subtlety, sometimes painting with a broad brush is the best choice.
Director: Steven Soderbergh
I mistrust films with multiple, interweaving stories - I hated Magnolia, I don't particularly like Short Cuts, I've grown to dislike Syriana, and even Pulp Fiction has some dud scenes. Traffic is an Important Film with a Message, and its insistence on melodrama seems to be an uphill battle against the difficulties that interweaving stories create - once we're really getting into a story, the director brings us somewhere else. We're like a child who wanders in during the middle of a movie...
I did like the different filters and camera styles used to denote exactly which story we're in; the directing generally was top-notch. Even though the beginning of the film's multiple references to alcohol could win a Hamhandedness Award for Not-So-Subtle Subtlety, sometimes painting with a broad brush is the best choice.
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